James Darcy

ACAPs workshop on multi-sectoral assessment

Revinge, Sweden

May 2010

Needs assessment and decision-making

3 functions of assessment

to inform organisational decisions about response, throughout the life of a programme

to influence others’ decisions (including donors and host governments)

to justify response decisions and appeals for funds (& provide baseline for impact assessment)

Context for this discussion

• Perceived credibility gap• Donors’ own assessments (DART etc)

• Push for more joined-up, better prioritised response (how exactly does JNA help with this?)

• Political resistance in country• Fragmentation and discontinuity in diagnostic

processes (assessment, monitoring, evaluation)

• Misunderstanding (mis-portrayal?) of the role of aid

Issues arising with multi-sector assessment

Form should follow function. So... what is the purpose of multi-sector assessment? What is its utility? (Compare JNA, MSA, etc)

•Issues arising:– Conceptual– Methodological– Process– Operational

Mapping the evolution of a crisis

1

Time

Severity

A

B

C

D

‘Crisis’ threshold

‘Need’ is not a precisely definable or measurable quantity, and needs assessment is not an exact science: it involves estimation, interpretation and judgement, as well as measurement, observation and analysis.

Decision-making, similarly, involves judgement and the weighing of multiple factors. The question is what constitutes a sufficiently well-informed decision, and how to ensure that decisions are adequately informed by good needs analysis.

Needs-based decision-making

What types of decision? At what level?

Strategic decisions about whether and how to respond – or to change a response – scale, role

Programme design decisions (sectoral approach etc) Resource allocation decisions: What resources ($,

people etc) to allocate and how to allocate them (cp macro and micro resource allocation)

Tactical/operational decisions

Levels of decision:(i) Within organisations: HQ, regional, national, local (ii) System-wide or inter-organisational

UN agencies

Red Cross/ Crescent

Movement

International NGOs

Implementation

INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN ‘SYSTEM’

CRISIS CONTEXTS

International donor

governments(humanitarian

ODA)

Private individuals

Common Funds

Finance

Corporate etc

STATENational & local

government+ agents

Non-state actors- Civil society: NGOs etc

-- Other

Crisis-affected communities

Who is making the decisions…?

Go

vern

an

ce a

nd

Co

ord

ina

tion

National and regional offices

Situational analysis(Need/risk, vulnerability, capacities)

Response analysis(Design, resource requirements)

Early WarningSurveillanceMonitoring

Pre-crisis Information (baselines, livelihoods etc)

Assessment

Situational analysis tools (social, economic, political, + sector specific: epidemiological, etc.)

Response Decision

Other factors:

Organisational policyResource availability Added valuePoliticsEtc.

Costed Programme

Response analysis tools(best practice, standards & protocols, evaluations, etc.)

Linking assessment and response 1: getting to a programme

Response analysis

Situational analysis

Programme design

Population affected

Proposed interventions:

programme design

Caseload determination

Calculation of resource

requirement

International appeal

NationalgovernmentInformation

systems

EWS, vulnerability mapping,

surveillance, scenario planning

Groups at most risk

Donor assessments

Situational Assessments

Programme implementation

Donor resource allocation

Response analysis

Situational analysis

Operational& work plans

Linking assessment and response decisions 2: getting to a number

AgencyProposal

Different levels of analysis & information need

Health cluster example

Compare:

1.Overall health sector2.Sub-categories: resource availability, service coverage, risk factors, outcomes3.Detailed indicators

Who needs which level of analysis?